"There used to be a lot more activity here when that was a live courthouse," Dean said while gazing across the street at the century-old Madison County Courthouse that now houses the local chamber of commerce.

Dean lives on the town square. All he has to do is step off the front porch, and he's on government land.

The busy days when the courthouse was filled with dozens of people summoned for jury duty, along with lawyers, police and witnesses, ended in 1997 when the courthouse moved to a new location.

Today, this Danielsville High School Class of 1955 graduate is living his retirement years in the town of his birth. But life hasn't always been so subdued for Dean, probably best known throughout the county as a baseball and softball umpire, a sport he's loved since he was a boy. But there was a time when Dean was in the company of presidents, foreign leaders and celebrities.

For just more than five years, he was an enlisted officer on the staff of Air Force One, the airplane that serves the president of the United States.

It was an assignment during his 30-year Air Force career that he fondly remembers. In fact, the presidential fleet has a reunion every three years at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington D.C., which gives him a chance to rehash those memories with others assigned to the famous plane.

Dean was assigned to Air Force One in 1965-70 and served under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. The particular plane, also known as SAM26000, today is on permanent display in the Air Force National Museum. The historic plane is the same one that carried the body of President John F. Kennedy from Texas to Washington after his assassination, and it took President Nixon on his famous trips to China and the Soviet Union.

On a recent warm August day, Dean sat in the living room in the house that once was the home and office for early 20th-century physician Dr. Dabney Gholston. The window air conditioner was turned off, but a ceiling fan kept the air circulating, while the noise of passing trucks and cars on U.S. Highway 29 filtered through the open front door.

Dean, whose voice is affected by an accident last spring when he was hit by a baseball bat in the throat while umpiring a softball game, spoke in a low voice as he reflected on his Air Force days. He noted that Air Force One has a perfect record.

"They have never ever had any sort of accident, not once. I think that can be attributed to a great extent to their prevention maintenance program - they don't wait till something breaks," he said.

Onboard Air Force One, Dean came in frequent contact with presidents, learning their little personality quirks, from Johnson's preference for the occasional Cutty Sark scotch to Nixon's penchant for coffee.

Nixon "was easy to be around," Dean said. "He didn't eat much, but he drank an awful lot of coffee, and he'd have the occasional highball or something, but not very often. That gang he surrounded himself - Haldeman and those people - they came on board, too, and I never liked any of them."

Whereas Nixon was congenial, Dean found Johnson more irascible and less friendly.

Dean was aboard Air Force One when it was used to transport Robert Kennedy's body from Los Angeles - where he was slain in 1968 - to New York.

"The body was up front, and the passengers and dignitaries were in the back. The passenger list read like a who's-who - Andy Williams, Claudine Longet, Jackie Kennedy," Dean said.

During his career, Dean also was assigned to government planes carrying foreign dignitaries who visited the U.S. on trips arranged by the State Department.

He spent eight days with Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda. Later, when Air Force One took Johnson to a Philippines summit conference in 1966, Dean happened upon an agent assigned to protect Marcos outside a hotel where Johnson was staying.

"We talked and had a cigarette, and he said, 'President Marcos is here, and he'll be glad to see you."

In fact, when Marcos came down and saw Dean, he invited Dean to his presidential residence, something Dean was reluctant to accept because of protocol.

But Marcos insisted, even telling Dean's superior that he wanted Dean to make the visit. Dean traveled with Marcos to the house, and Imelda gave him a tour.

"Johnson heard that I had been (there) before he got there, and he was fit to be tied. I heard about that, and I thought, 'What in the hell is he going to do?' " Dean said.

But cooler heads prevailed: Johnson was told it wasn't Dean's fault, and the incident soon was forgotten.

Another time, Dean accompanied Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie on a trip to the U.S. The plane was headed to San Francisco when an aide approached Dean.

"He said, 'Paul, His Majesty wants to go to Palm Springs.' Well, we don't have Palm Springs on the itinerary. Our next stop is San Francisco. I said why, and he said, 'He wishes to meet with Mr. Eisenhower.' (Dwight D.) Eisenhower was living there at the time."

Selassie continued to insist, and the plane ended up going to Palm Springs, where Selassie met with the former president.

Selassie "gave me a gold coin, and somebody stole it out of my bag before we got back to Washington," Dean said.

Outside his years on Air Force One, Dean was assigned to planes that carried other dignitaries, from congressmen and generals.

He made frequent flights to Vietnam to transport such people as Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of military operations during the war, and comedian Bob Hope, who made tours to Vietnam to entertain the troops.

"I turned down commissions twice," Dean said, one reason being he enjoyed his flights around the world, from Cairo to Rio de Janeiro. That seemed preferable to a desk job.

"The only time I regretted turning a commission down was the day I retired," he said with a smile.

Dean grew up in downtown Danielsville, a son of Bob and Cora Dean, who are buried in the Friendship Baptist Church cemetery.

"My dad was a deputy sheriff for a while and a mill worker, essentially, in Athens. My mother worked during the war in the mill as well," he said. He had a brother who died about four months ago, and his sister, who is married to an oil company executive, lives in Lake Mary, Fla.

When Dean went to Danielsville High, he played basketball and baseball, excelling in the latter.

"They weren't much on records back then, but I held the state record for on-base ability. I got on base 19 straight times, by hook or crook, including being hit several times."

Dean said he kept playing baseball in the Air Force, then resorted to being an umpire when his playing days ended.

After retiring from the Air Force, he worked for aviation and defense contractor Lockheed Corp., coordinating hotel and business accommodations for space shuttle astronauts. He and his wife, Gloria, moved back to Danielsville in 1988 from Lompoc, Calif. Gloria, whom he married in 1968, died about 15 years ago. His son lives in Danielsville, and a daughter is in West Virginia.

As Dean sat on a chair under the fan this warm summer afternoon, he remembered a conversation he had with his wife not long after he retired from the Air Force and began working for Lockheed.

"You're still in the Air Force," Gloria said of his new work.

"I said, 'No, my career with the Air Force is over, but my love affair with it never will be.' "

There was something about flying the skies that suited the man who circled the globe and landed where it all began.